The Festival

Activities

Bergamo Film Meeting is one of the most important events in the Italian festival calendar: for 44 years in March, thousands of enthusiasts of auteur cinema come together to share a major cinematic event.

9 days of screenings
over 160 films including feature films, documentaries, and shorts
Bergamo Film Meeting has turned 44 and it’s back!

Something has changed

The beauty of a festival like Bergamo Film Meeting lies not solely in its programming choices, film selection,

or curated retrospectives, but also in the opportunities it offers to discover films from every era in their original format or in state-of-the-art 4K resolution. One can still enjoy the grainy texture of celluloid and hear the distant hum of the projector, yet also appreciate a gorgeous, crisp, and flawless digital copy. As “moving pictures”, cinema has never been still by definition. It started out analogue, then came sound, then colour, then digital media. And today, there’s a new threshold to cross. The growing popularity of immersive and virtual reality, particularly in the film industry, is radically redefining the concept of “spectator”. No longer just an audience sitting in front of a screen, but a physically engaged body, an active presence within the artwork. And it also redefines the concept of media: no longer film, magnetic tape, or digital files, but a true synthetic environment built by integrating advanced hardware, complex algorithms, and artificial intelligence.

Dealing with change is a challenge that comes with both risks and new opportunities. Digitisation opens up

access to previously invisible works, enables restorations that preserve films at risk of disappearing, expands the international circulation of films and, by reducing production and distribution costs, creates new avenues of creative expression. But this also raises a question: who decides what should be preserved and digitised? In concrete terms, which films can be re-released in theatres, which films are part of a heritage that is worth preserving, and which ones can be forgotten? On the other hand, 35mm copies are becoming increasingly rare: they are rarely printed, often unavailable for loan, and sometimes remain confined to film archives as fragile objects. It is not just a technical or logistical issue: it is a radical change in our relationship with the materiality of cinematographic works. However, it is a change that we must acknowledge and deal with in preparing for the Festival: there is a film out there, available, ready to be rediscovered and appreciated by audiences and to provide a better understanding of a filmmaker’s career, yet we cannot show it because there is only one copy on film and it cannot leave the archive where it is stored. That’s despite the fact that here in Bergamo, in our auditorium, alongside the digital projector, there is also a 35 mm projector and skilled, passionate projectionists who know how to use it and handle the film with the care it requires. What should we do then? Not being able to show a film because the copy is not available for loan, or being forced to screen it in digital format, sometimes impoverishes and flattens our programming, leaving us somewhat disappointed. We find ourselves taking on the role of detectives to find alternatives, gather information, and solve programming puzzles. Luckily, most of the time this approach pays off, but occasionally we are forced to compromise or give up on a particular idea altogether.

Bergamo Film Meeting is a meeting place across eras, a space where films from the past and present coexist not as opposites but as different forms of the same quest: to use images to reflect on the here and now. It is also a workshop for critical analysis, a space where films are not simply presented, but contextualised, interconnected, and discussed. Here, the audience is not just spectators, but part of a journey of discovery: they learn to observe and understand the transformations of the contemporary gaze. This is precisely why, a couple of years ago, BFM joined a European network of festivals programming a large number of archive films, a community that shares practices, skills, and responsibilities. In this ongoing dialogue, we promote cinema as a cultural asset: not solely a product of industry, but a collective memory to be preserved and kept alive, today and for the future.

The change that cinema is undergoing is inevitable. We welcome it with a sense of awareness, without shying away from its innovative energy, but also without relinquishing what continues to be valuable to us.

We still treasure and use analogue technology, not out of stubbornness, but out of cultural conviction: celluloid film is an integral part of the history and aesthetics of cinema, a medium that deserves to be experienced whenever possible.

So, once again this year, let’s get comfortable in the darkness of the theatre and enjoy the bright moving images. And maybe this time, let’s pay a little more attention and take a moment to appreciate the difference between the graininess of film and the high definition of the digital format. And let our minds and hearts be carried away by the magic of cinema, whether the illusion is visible or not. Enjoy the show.

News

Sezioni 2025 – BFM 43

Your support is a gesture that speaks to the present and an investment in the existence and growth of Bergamo Film Meeting: it is what restores energy and vision, the value that makes it possible to carry out today’s projects and look to the future. And thinking about the future means building together a conscious, shared project with a long-term vision.